


Resa

by feveredsweetness



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon, Canon Divergence, Caretaking, Empath, Episode AU: s03e07 Digestivo, Episode: s03e07 Digestivo, Hannibal Lecter - Freeform, Hannigram - Freeform, M/M, Manipulation, Memory Palace, Obsession, Regret, Team Sassy Science, Will Graham - Freeform, broken teacup, cannibal, dark!Will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-12-01 01:08:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11475429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feveredsweetness/pseuds/feveredsweetness
Summary: "Digestivo," post-Muskrat Farm, from Hannibal's point of view. Some canon divergence.Loving someone is one matter. Rejection, another.





	Resa

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Private Citizen for commissioning this! It was a well-enjoyed challenge to write this. I'm so glad it's more than what you wanted. <3 
> 
> I don't often write from Hannibal's perspective, so I hope I did him justice.

Hannibal’s breath swirls, each exhalation that meets the air frosting over in winter’s now tender caress. His muscles burn and seethe under cool flesh, screaming from the abuse they’ve endured during his time as a well-kept pig at Muskrat Farm, the burned skin around his shoulder protesting against his clothes. 

Will Graham lies as immobile as the dead in his arms, save for the bobbing of his head with each determined step of Hannibal’s that cuts into the frozen, snow-quilted ground. 

Hannibal has made a promise to Alana. He always keeps his promises, though in the furthest corner of his heart, interconnected with a locked room in his palace, he knows that his actions transcend the mere honour of his word. 

_You cannot control with respect to whom you fall in love._

His accented words echo back to him within vaulted ceilings. He blinks against the needled wind, the back of his throat meeting flecks of glass with every oncoming gust as he tries to keep Will and himself supported. The younger man, though slight, is heavier than an admirer would estimate given the muscle tone that has built up since the pair’s fateful night back in Baltimore. The night the teacup was supposed to come together.

Salt threatens to spill from his alert gaze as a flash of pain pulses through his heart, more blistering than the Verger brand that had been hotly pressed into his flesh. He ignores it despite not being one to deny himself of any emotion. 

_Human emotions are a gift from our animal ancestors,_ he had once said and now heard again in the foyer of his mind. Cruelty is a gift humanity has given itself. 

_And the universe, too,_ his thoughts sing their reply, _with all its innumerable rules of disorder._

____

He scoffs at himself and the blanketed world around him. 

Hannibal sniffs the air, proceeding to escape to the forest’s edge ahead of him, with Will in his custody, instinctively knowing that Chiyoh is on watch from her post in the trees, preying from above. Whichever of Mason’s bodyguards are on his trail, are simply of no match. They lack the intimacy the victory of a hunt requires; their raised rifles primary evidence of the fact. 

Amusement flickers at the corners of his mind, the chill of reality, however, prohibiting its abundance.

The distance between them, Hannibal and Will narrows, steadily closing until death swiftly and silently eliminates any trace of endangerment; metal meeting bone, sliding through organ, as the maker delivers the swine to their eternal house of slaughter. 

Hannibal’s mouth curves upwards, his head more leveled with the horizon as his shoulders roll back to accommodate the adjustment of his arms, legs and lower muscles of his back, renewed enough in their strength to shift the weight of Will accordingly. 

In a few hours, he estimates, dusk will breach the white yet blackened terrain, christening it anew with another opportunity to replace order to that which has been uprooted, whether by nature’s design or by Hannibal’s own. In the way of the universe, balance must always be restored.

***

By the time Hannibal finally reaches the porch of Will’s home in Wolf Trap, Virginia, exhaustion gnaws at every inch of him as hunger rumbles throughout the depths of his stomach. A more poignant type, however, beats within him elsewhere, clawing at the seams of his already tattered person suit. 

One must always practice caution in the hunt for things lost, that Hannibal already has filed away in the basic compartment of his foundation, though this particular pursuit comes armed with a trip wire. 

A hiss of air escapes between gritted teeth as though he has just been bitten by the poisonous truth; a snake he has neglected to keep in the banks of sincere acknowledgment. 

With a grimace-laced snarl, he carefully places Will at his side, slinging one of his friend’s arms over his shoulder and supporting the rest of his body weight with his own while retrieving the pocketknife given to him by Alana from his inner coat pocket. 

He snaps the blade open with a flick of his wrist. Utilizing it to maneuver the lock, he successfully gains entry into the vacant house within moments. 

With some expected difficulty, he gathers Will back up into his arms; the lack of sleep and the toll of the abuse to his body slipping ever gradually into their reveal. 

Being mindful of the younger man’s residence, he allows his guard to lessen. Only dust laden air and the old scent of the man’s family of strays is detected. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Mason’s ordained manhunt floats dead in the water, with Alana and Margot being of no pressing matter at all. Their due will come eventually, of course, as goes for Jack Crawford and the FBI. Such details are common knowledge, even to those beneath him. 

A promise for a promise. An eye for an eye. The innateness of it all eludes most until their basic nature is tapped into. Manipulated. Driven. 

Hannibal has spun them each their gold, and soon the maw of fate will close around their throats like the snare on a rabbit.

Even Steven, as Will had so coined the circumstances, after throwing Randall Tier onto his dining table.

At this, pride swells within his chest, melting over his carved and angular features.

Despite having never been able to entirely predict Will, Hannibal has always known down to his marrow that breath and blood are key elements that undergo change to fuel the man’s radiance. Light and air and color are commonly gifted to everyone at birth, but Will... Will has always required something more substantial, having lived the majority of his life in the caverns of madness, where blood and screams smear the air, heightening his empathy, increasing his appetite for a life transcendent of the dull confines in which people lock themselves in.

The gifting of Mr. Tier had been full bodied proof.

Even the mark Will had left on Cordell was a further indication that he and Hannibal were two sides of the same primeval coin. 

As he crosses over into the spacious living area, a strange fondness creeps across the pathways of his heart as he finds the empath’s bed in its usual spot, neat and cold from long-term disuse. He lays his friend to rest above the sheets, sighing in relief.

Relief and the levity of his thoughts endure a short half life, however. Neither make up for the loss each of them have suffered. Actions still hold their consequences, no matter how the universe has set up their reunion. Brokenness remains. 

Hannibal’s breath stalls as self-detestation is tasted in the back of his mouth; metallic and overdone. His brows draw together. A pointed canine digs into the sensitive skin of his bottom lip. Copper wells, a small means for atonement as his tongue gives a small flick. Enough to taste, but not to collect. He wants a remaining stain. 

He shifts his attention to the tangible details in need of his care, reminding himself that what he most wishes to heal has no plausible solution as of yet. He cannot control the workings of time nor bend the rules of order and disorder alike, though defiance will still rear, but what he can do, is take care of the one in front of him. 

His dear William. 

The wounds on the younger man’s face will have to be cleaned and properly tended to, after, of course, a bath and a clean change of clothes. 

He nods to himself and goes to draw the bath, filling the tub with warm-hot water to soothe any sore muscles that Will surely has. He returns to collect the man once more, being careful when he goes to prop the man upright, his back supported by the exterior wall of the ceramic tub. Even moreso when he proceeds in stripping him of his clothes, doing his professional best not to anger the bullet wound on his shoulder given to him by Chiyoh while in Florence. 

Something similar to a laugh froths up and out of Hannibal’s mouth at the physical reminder. 

_Atta girl._

He notes that he will have to attend to the woman later, figuring she may well already be waiting for him on the porch outside. Still as the night, and steadfast as ever.

With Will having now gingerly been placed inside of the bath, Hannibal finds himself, on some insignificant level, marveling at how akin to the deceased Will presently is: all deadweight yet pliant beneath his touch; pallid yet with the stream of life still coursing within him. As he tenderly washes away dirt and dried crusts of blood with a mild soap at hand, he then wonders as to how many times Will may have seen himself in the likes of those passed on. 

How many times has he himself seen the same? 

Not often, he concludes to himself shortly. He returns to the task at hand of ensuring that all the soap has been rinsed from Will’s body, along with the unpleasant reminders of the man’s experience dealt to him by the likes of Cordell and Mason; with the unfortunate exception of the incision the former had left him with along his jawline. 

Hannibal’s own jaw clenches as his mouth coils. 

He leaves Will for a moment after taking care to make sure that he won’t slide and go under by propping his arms on the ledge of either side of the tub, while resting the back of the man’s head on the lip of the bath behind him. 

Kneeling, he searches the cabinet space under the bathroom sink, a twinge of frustration prodding at him as he finds nothing but generic cleaning supplies. He rises and moves over to the side of the vanity where the mirrored medicine cabinet is fixed, his shoulders releasing the built up tension as his gaze settles upon what he needs; alcohol, and a standard first-aid kit. 

A ghost of a smile traces over the bow of his lips as he turns to carry on with tending to Will. 

Within a few graceful yet hurried strides, he lowers himself back to Will’s level. He produces a soft, clean washcloth he had grabbed off the bathroom counter, turning the faucet back on for a moment in order to properly dampen it. 

In slow, gentle circles he works around the edges of both the incision made by Cordell and the one made by his own hand with the bone saw back in Florence, in order to rid of any lingering debris before sanitizing the areas themselves with the alcohol. 

Once he finishes, Hannibal cradles the side of Will’s face with one palm, as his other hand brushes stray curls from off the man’s forehead to get a better look at the wound there. He hums softly, pleased to some degree that Cordell had lived up to his perfectionist reputation in regards to the neat, black sutures. 

Although, given that Will’s face had been destined for Mason’s, he really expected nothing short of flawless. 

He moves onto the incision along the scruff of his jaw. Meticulously clean, but in need of sutures if he decides on not leaving the man with another memento of where darkness has touched him. 

His gaze shifts to the periphery, the silky whisper of temptation threading its way through his ears, and yet, with a trace of a frown, he goes for the necessities to stitch the empath back together again. 

The process of unifying torn flesh only takes a few minutes at best as he’s always been able to make quick, skillful work of such instruments as these. A glimmer of pride shines through his heavy eyes as he’s finishing, snipping the thread off where he no longer needs it and replacing the equipment back into the kit. 

Hannibal leans back onto his heels, pausing in his actions. His compassion for the man before him is inconvenient. 

His mind conjures up Will’s response. It’s fine. Hannibal trusts he knows better as to what his often rude William’s response will be, perhaps even prior to the man is cognizant of what he will utter himself. Perhaps he does still know William better than he knows himself. 

Hannibal is, in banal layman’s terms, estranged from the complexities of personal internal conflict. Regardless, he finds himself on its vast terrain, swept into the shallows of submission. His sheer intolerance for the complete allowance of such a state, however, lends him some remaining control. 

The good doctor rises from where he’s squatting, wandering the altered halls of his memory palace, presently under conflict’s influence.

 _Will stands before him, back turned, straightened; confidence in who he is shining through._

_Radiant._

_He slides a glance over his shoulder, stormy eyes reflective of mockery meeting those of dried copper._

_“I don’t believe you, Hannibal,” the cadence of Will’s words wraps around the other, coiling._

_“Compassion? You’re baiting yourself.” He turns enough to present half of his profile to Hannibal, then pauses, considering the man for a moment._

_“And you aren’t always the best bait,” the warmth of his voice trails into coldness as the truth breaches the surface._

_Hannibal cants his head, his features minutely attuning to a kind of pleasure only those in his predicament face._

_“I’m pleased to see you, Will,” he replies amicably. He nods in his direction, eyes cast to the floor of the church in which he often holds his beloved. He turns to leave, having received what he had been summoned for._

_“Pleased?” Will echoes back, bringing the psychiatrist to pause, stirred._

_The younger man’s footfall sounds behind him, the heels of his boots mimicking the softer threats of thunder._

_“Pleased, Hannibal?” Will huffs a harsh laugh, breathing into the hollow of the other’s ear. “No.”_

_Hannibal almost winces at the word’s impact. His beloved simpers, gaze glimmering out of malintent._

_“I’ve told you I prefer sins of omission to outright lies.” The man continues, stalking round the good doctor, scrutiny dusting his features. “What you have, Hannibal, is not pleasure nor compassion. What you have is love in all of its carnal form. Blood, madness, suffering--all composite elements in the elegance of your design. Elegance for the sake of inelegance. You take Death’s children and manifest them into grandiose works of art, yet with me, well…” He smiles to himself as though coveting something precious. “I’m your grandest work yet, aren’t I?”_

_“Killing you, Will, would not fulfill me, however enticing the premise may be on occasion.” Hannibal reveals, waiting for Will to still and perhaps face him. “The world is much more interesting with you in it.”_

_The other scoffs, blues raging like the archaic seas described in Greek odysseys._

_“The world is much more interesting for you with me in it,” he counters. “You’re unable to entirely predict me. I’m the only one who can meet you in this ultimate game of chess. You need me in order to preserve the significance of your meaning. Without me, this whole palace deteriorates and all that’s left for you is a stage full of reprehensible psychopaths. Hollowed tragedies minus the intellectual, classical architecture.”_

_Hannibal is the first to initiate eye contact. Blood meets water._

_“All of this horror is for love. Love is what holds you to me. I keep getting mangled up because of it. Because of you.”_

_“Love makes monsters of us all, Will. It’s love’s innate gift. Destruction. Reciprocity. Like Shiva, I am both your destroyer and benefactor. There is a balance that needs maintained in order for growth to flourish.”_

_“And look at what you’ve made me grow into.”_

__

_Antlers breach through Will’s skin, emerging from his spine as blood wells and rolls down from the lining of his eyes, the raging sea within them frothing over into an impenetrable dark as the canvas of his body turns to ashened grey._

_Hannibal observes the sudden transformation, shifting his weight back onto his heels. He hums, pleasurably, until alertness strikes him with the notion that the scenario unfolding before him is collapsing._

_A blackened, clawed hand rips into Will from behind, his spinal cord severed and discarded on the chapel floor. The engraved skull below them seeming to praise the unceremonious sacrifice._

_The body of his beloved crumples like a child’s paper doll, the Wendigo perched in its selected place, hunched and glowering._

_Involuntary penance. Betrayed by his own nature._

_Hannibal’s irises blow wide, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth momentarily before it slides back down and meets the sharpness of his teeth._

_His eyes slip close, then open and level with the Wendigo’s own._

_It knew._

_It's black, veined dagger of a tongue swirls around its fingers. Cruel lips chiseling out a ghastly grin._

_Hannibal forces himself to exhale out the tension that roils within him, his upper lip curling back and revealing pointed canines._

_His surrounding mind palace abruptly rumbles beneath his feet, vibrating throughout his being._

_The cathedral walls in all of their elegant decadence descend all around him, the faces of glorified saints and of the saviour Himself unrelenting in their sacred final judgements._

_This suits him just fine. He had never the sense of necessitating divine decrees in order to live in the illusion of such a sanctuary in which they offered. He has always resided in the constructs of his own._

_Even now amidst the rubble, Hannibal has gained more here than from anything divinity has ever imparted._

***

His hair stands on end at the back of his neck, his ears picking up on hushed details. 

The pads of his skilled fingers tenderly guide worn buttons into their slots, working their way down to the end of unimaginably soft flannel. 

The sense of sight floods back to him. 

Will’s room again. 

Hannibal stands beside the improper bed, cognizant of how his body has carried on delivering a string of compassionate acts during his inner voyage. 

He feels conjoined. Will’s pain mirroring his own. Wisps of empathy entwined with the other’s carefully guarded heart, tugging him along down a road he could not recall ever paving. 

He watches the younger man, now nestled amongst the pillow and rustled sheets, snooze softly; tranquility providing a balm to the necessary savageries madness had them bound up in. 

The scales of choice, persistently repeating in their infinite cycle, present themselves to the monster guised in the form of humanity, whisking him back to the time of his escape.

Ice fills his lungs as his heart seizes with the flash of redundant remembrance. 

_Hannibal could leave him. He has entertained the idea to say the least, while indulging in the freedom the landscape of Muskrat Farm presented him. Under a fat moon with its canvas of strewn stars, the thought of running, knowing no one would be able to catch him, is delicious in its simple temptation._

__

__

After all, Will had once placed Hannibal’s freedom in terrible jeopardy back in Baltimore. The threat, much like the clawed hammer that Hannibal had smashed into the chest of one of Mason’s guards, had left him with something worse than a grisly, gaping wound. 

A breach of trust cuts closer to the heart than any blade utilized. Denying someone of being who they are, even in the throes of deceit and misconception, is akin to newborn life being snuffed out, crushed, at any initial detection of its true potential. 

But forgiveness. 

I have to eat him, the inner voice of reason chimes unquestionably. 

_No._

“No,” he echoes to himself, amber eyes swimming with a grief seldom surfaced. 

He turns away, agonized. He crosses over to Will’s desk a mere few feet away, yanking open the top drawer and snatching a dust-filmed journal. 

He grabs the chair with him on his way back, stopping a bit above the foot of the empath’s bed, and settles into its supportive frame. 

Hours meld as silently as Will’s restful breathing. The only thing that gently jostles Hannibal back to his reality are the first hints of a yearning sun gliding shadows across the worn floorboards. 

He cranes his neck out of its unnatural, obsessive angle, the nerves screaming in objection. 

His eyes click with each fatigued blink, the man beside him coming into focus. 

Hannibal extends his arm, and touches his face, the palm of his hand cradling its bearded side. He permits himself a moment, his thumb stroking his William’s cheek.

Enough, he decides with the weight of beration. 

He parts from the chair and sets himself out of the room, into the wintry dusk. 

Where iron and silver meet. Where the lion stalks the ground.  
***

Walking back in from his time with Chiyoh, Hannibal almost stills as he finds Will to be awake, studying his physics notes within the web of equations elegantly written across the pages.

He crosses over to him, an air of nonchalance permeating the atmosphere. Curved lips melt into a softened smile, reaching the corners of amber eyes. 

“Shall we discuss teacups, time and the rules of disorder?” His lilting Lithuanian accent slithers into the far reaches of the room despite its raw softness.

The probing of Will’s scrutiny does not go undetected. It taps into the weakened walls of his palace, finding him there, wounded beyond physical measure. Broken by his own deeds amidst the remnants of an object once whole. Sacredness disparaged.

It is a truth in which Hannibal cannot look directly in the face. 

“The teacup is broken. And it’s never going to come back together again.”

A muscle in Hannibal’s cheek twitches. 

“Not even in your mind, Will?” his voice reaches, softly. 

A deafening silence provides the empath’s response. 

Despite keeping his composure, Hannibal can feel the foundation of his palace beginning to crack; a web of chaos on the cusp of deliverance. 

His jaw works as he allows his words to pass. 

“Your own memory palace is building. Expanding into new and vast territory. Full of things yet explored. It shares a few rooms with my own. I’ve found you there. Victorious.” 

Will’s lips carve the look of resignation on his face, his eyes darkening as they narrow; fine lines fanning out. A reflection of a man who has been wrought in the harrowing jaws of blood-smeared madness. Past the point of no return. 

“There will never be a decisive victory. Not when it comes to this. To us.” 

A sharp intake of breath.

“We are a zero-sum game,” the older man concludes, nodding to himself, inwardly kneeling at the mercy of defeat, though still scrambling to find some saving grace. 

His mind runs through unwritten equations, tracing and retracing his intellectual steps, and reaching the same inconclusiveness in which every other equation has held. 

“I miss my dogs. I’m not going to miss you. I’m not going to find you. I’m not going to look for you. I don’t want to know where you are or what you do. I don’t want to think about you anymore,” Will speaks, his tone icy and balanced, like a fine blade. His stormy eyes lay fixed upon the man before him, reinforcing the blow of his words. 

Hannibal remains seated as his gaze wanders aimlessly over his finely scribed equations from earlier. He blinks, long and slow as his jaw grates before jutting back out almost unnoticeably. 

“You delight in wickedness and then berate yourself for the delight.”

“You delight. I tolerate,” Will corrects; his mouth tense, his stare never faltering. A steely pause beats between them before he finishes with a near snarl. “I don’t share your appetite.” 

Hannibal nearly flinches, though he doesn’t give Will the satisfaction of witnessing the vulnerability of such a reaction, and thus, rewarding him with a shared moment of intimacy. Instead, he rises gracefully from his chair adjacent to his friend’s bed, swiping up his notepad in the same motion, his copper toned eyes dulled to a lightless brown. His stare drags over the old floorboards of the man’s tired, comfortable home before settling back on the man himself.

“Goodbye, Hannibal.” Will averts his eyes from the doctor, resolute in his termination. 

The other dwells, breathing evenly through his nose, as he continues to look at Will, searching. 

Absence in the wake of a door slammed shut is all that is found, aside from the soul-rupturing dissonance left between them. 

Hannibal wordlessly takes his leave, providing his friend with the space he requires. 

Alone, both of them. Alone with their thoughts and incomplete selves in the aftermath of a jagged separation. 

***  
The door swings shut behind him, the finality of the click of the lock against the heavy thud of wood leadens the tempo of his heart. 

Hannibal’s hands grip the lapels of his woolen coat before ghosting up to draw the charcoal collar closer to the skin of his neck. The ambered honey of his eyes turn molten, crystalline tears daring to spill onto the angled planes of his battle-scorned cheeks. 

He bows his head, the turbulence of silence wrapping him up fully before towing him away from Will’s door. 

No returns. No further calls to madness will assuage the man he desires. In times of rejection, one must be maddeningly polite. And so, he will be. 

His footsteps fall as light as smoke while he makes his way across the muted ground. Sunlight derides him; flitting over his back only to renounce its invitation to soothing warmth. 

It would be a few hours before the sun retreats into the horizon, though Hannibal can still detect its early vows.

Hannibal pauses in consideration. A swell of passion crashes within, his gaze roaming over his shoulder. He was, perhaps, less than a quarter of a mile away. Will’s house afloat on the stable currents of peace, seeking to float ever further from the tow the of violent tides. 

The bow of the man’s lips whisper a thread of a smile. He turns on his heels, his feet weaving their way across the crests of snow. 

Low groans of wind prick against every surface of exposed flesh in warning. 

Each new breath he takes feels like the steam of an engine determined to go the defying distance; his heart thrashing against the cage of his chest. 

He breaches the barrier between himself and the refutable empath’s contempt as soon as he lands upon the front deck, lurching towards the door, his hand already on the knob about to turn and enter with his plea full demands in the enticing form of manipulation. But then…

He rescinds his motions.

Like a spectre, he falls back over steps so passionately tread, into the backdrop of a past that is never to transcend into the future of tomorrow. 

The hunt is at an end. 

The adamancy of phrases previously said having formed deadbolts now sliding firmly back into place in the chambers of his palace. 

Access to his beloved forsaken. 

He lumbers around to the far side of the empath’s residence, crouching to his knees once resting his spine against the shingled, frost coated walls. Cradled in the outlines of the progressing day. The wind letting up in silken strokes. Still, the bite remains. 

And worries the fibers of his heart. His soul lying dormant. 

The lids of Hannibal’s eyes quiver, his breathing faint. He remembers as to when the perceived notions of others had come to pass into the foyer of his mind. They called him the devil. Crafted of smoke. Undetectable until the alarm sounded and by then, too late. 

Even now. Only the alarm shrilled in opposition to his very self. 

His own ignorance undeserving of sympathy. His own vain selfishness having ultimately obstructed the attainment of the one person out there who knows and sees him more clearly than any other soul staining the stage of the world. 

He sits in the cavernous corridors of his palace. Sunken in the barren mouth of withdrawal.

***

Evening paints the sky in feathered strokes of violet, burnt orange and symbolic scarlet; the last color reminiscent of the proverbial blood that has been shed in the past hours of the present day. 

Hannibal never thought this would ever be more viciously consuming than the actual act of maiming. 

He knows love in all its feralness is wounding. But this. This steals his breath away, alights his heart and lashes his very soul, crueler than any piercing blade ever could. 

Perhaps this is Will’s overdue reckoning. For Hannibal not to consider this would be evidentiary of his blindness. 

_Blindness._

Hannibal lets the word sink in, coating his tongue in all of its acidity as it tears up his throat and knots his stomach twice over. 

Has his shouldered sense of Will’s betrayals, coupled with the interlacing of love’s unbreakable ties, caused him to be blindsided? 

He allows his weight to fall against the peeling, frosted side of Will’s house while he examines the possibility only to conclude that isn’t right. 

_Nothing is right._

His eyes painfully pinch shut; splotches of color in all their multitude staining themselves behind the darkness of his lids. 

His mouth stretches tightly into a pained, almost colorless line; his teeth aching as they clash together, his stomach now clenching itself into a fist. 

_Time cannot be reversed. Teacups do not gather themselves back together. No amount of equations or cleverness can undo what has already been done. This is one train I cannot exceed nor overturn with several more. This game has no victory._

Will’s words thoroughly batter his heart again, more fiercely than when they were initially etched into the air, into his skin. And deeper. 

Hannibal’s entire being burns from the inside out, the frigidness of the oncoming evening unable to touch him, though his breath protests against the air with each combative huff. 

This cannot be the end. There _has_ to be a conquest, otherwise the pursuit of this dog-haired laden, shockingly rude empath has been all but in vain. Their masterful game of chess cob-webbed in its abandon, the work of each opponent in lonesome shambles. 

Each of them alone. 

Alone because they are unique. 

But Hannibal cannot survive the separation. 

He sucks in a breath, taking a moment to register what’s around him. 

Stillness. 

Soft flecks of white flutter to the frozen ground supporting him. The only thing that, in the past, had never been taken out from under him. Yet here it sits beneath his folded limbs. 

The rest of the snow coats itself gently over Will’s house. He observes each individual flake doing what they have been designed for. The trains of his mind start up, their engines rumbling to life again. 

Will had claimed that he was not going to look for him nor find him. The disgruntled, cunning man had also made it abundantly clear that he also wanted to remain ignorant of wherever Hannibal landed himself. 

 

Indignance creeps into the ambered stretches of Hannibal’s gaze, his brow in a knot while the remainder of his face keeps unperturbed. 

The tendrils of his mind seduce him back to the Wendigo. To the drinking of blood like wine, symbolic of the blood of the Son, only Will, to him, lay on a much higher alter. He always had, from the day the two had crossed each other’s intricate paths. 

Hannibal can still taste him, a shudder rolling through him like thunder brewing lightning. Nurturing, if not for the ultimate act of destruction. 

Destruction for the sake of redemption. Though, that’s where Hannibal discovers himself divided. 

Nature pitted against its own constructed self in a warning, and in punishment. 

The loss of Will within his mind’s arena was displayed before him in order of necessity, though the loss itself was nevertheless refutable. How the younger man, in all of his beautiful transformation, seethed like the untamable waters that have claimed unforgiven souls in the span of its vast and intricate history; parts of which are still untold and may now be chained forevermore. 

Then again, Hannibal knows infinitely better. His hunger for his beloved being ever marrow deep. His knowledge of the man intimate.

Like the sacrifice, he recalls. The Wendigo had seized good Will’s spinal cord, tossing it onto the face of the engraved skull who had bore witness to the act in exaltation. The Wendigo’s tongue mapping the visceral fluid along its boned and rigid fingers; eyes as greedy as the mouth of a black hole. All encasing, all knowing. 

Will having been eviscerated and left as nothing but the husk of his becoming. 

_Love maims. Love makes monsters of us, then devours and regurgitates us as though we were never anything more than an object of devotion made to be chosen before broken; like the teacups that cannot fall back together._

The man’s capable hands furl into fists; trimmed nails biting into frigid skin. 

Ensconced in the bruised, inky blue of the fresh new nightfall, Hannibal rises, the muscles in his thighs screaming from cramped disuse. He braces himself by placing a bared palm on the wall of the refuge he had been unable to pry himself away from, his head bowing as he stretches minutely before pushing himself away and into carrying out what he must do. 

He would not lose Will. 

He will not allow for teacups to remain shattered, nor for the man, whose rejection still consumes as strongly as the whitest flame, to stay as nothing else but the hollowed dream the Wendigo had put to bed. 

Ivory flakes thread themselves through Hannibal’s ashen golden hair, trapping themselves on his nose and eyelashes. The sensitive, still raw scrapes that have graced the upper contours of his cheeks are mild irritations at worst. Even the seared flesh of his shoulder could be considered a mere lashing. 

_Pain,_ he weighs, _of varying insufferable human levels, becomes rather irrelevant despite being one of the emotions gifted to us by our animal ancestors. Pain is only the fuel in which our actions lay out for us._

His own actions, undoubtedly, now turning the direction of the main train out of several, and at full speed. 

He knows Jack Crawford will come and ram the door down of Will’s privacy. He knows that Will is excruciatingly cognizant of the oncoming storm of irritation bearing down on his path as well. Inevitability, after all, is founded on predictive behaviour. And Jack is, if nothing more, predictable. The shark anticipating another’s kill strike before rapidly closing in. 

Hannibal’s nose picks up the mechanical aroma of exhaust. He estimates Jack and the bureau's time of arrival being fifteen minutes from the current moment. Potentially sooner, considering the exponentially short half life patience held in Jack’s own. 

Perceived justice overrules the established speed limit laws. 

A trace of amusement bleeds onto Hannibal’s now weather worn lips, his indirect stare more presently akin to the shade of undried copper. 

Perceived justice prevails over so many things, it clearly seems. 

As such, perception is a tool sharpened at both ends and on Hannibal’s part lies the ideation that the actions in which he is about to commit are in the in between of the grey of the matter. Neither congruent or incongruent. Entirely contingent upon each party’s motives and desires, whether spoken or etched into the fine lines of quiet. 

Certainly Will wants a life without Hannibal. Even more certainly does the formidable empath also desire the freedom of his own individual agency. 

So Hannibal will grant the boy his agency. He will grant him his absence. He will grant the grandiose illusion of what the man will feel is himself falling into the line of choice and even normalcy. He shall grant Will all of this without him ever knowing that the inexplicable bond between them has not been severed. 

Yes, Hannibal will grant the grace of it all. 

Will unquestionably will, in all due time, come swimming hungrily back. Whether motivated by the hellfire of madness beyond his domesticated threshold, or otherwise under Hannibal’s own manipulative ministrations, he would find his way back to his side, back to his truest nature. 

That’s all Hannibal has ever really wanted for the pair of them: the liberty to be their honest selves, without inhibition, without the constraints of the dull humdrum of the lawful sounds of the world in which they had both been forged into. A world in which would soon be born screaming into a future where they reign, unbound. 

The low, predatorial purr of engines disrupt the icy-tongued air licking at his ears, his own threat silenced like a gun fired into the ever distant horizon; the doors of patrol vehicles clicking, locking into the unwavering motive to secure what has always been elusive. The remaining bullet at long last hurtling towards the lone target. 

“He’s gone, Jack,” Will’s deterrent voice reaches from the front entry, the beat of his steps indicative of a final toll. 

Jack Crawford doesn’t withdraw, however; only roots himself deep within chance and what Hannibal distinguishes as undisputable raw, primal instinct: where Will treads, Hannibal’s wake lies. Like the magnetic snare of a well concealed trap. 

One can not be had without the other. 

Will peers through him, the walls of his mental fortress back in place, his focus balanced on the tortoise shell rims of his glasses. A dark fringe of curls further blocking Jack’s signals out. 

With the persistent crunch of the surrounding team’s determined footfall edging ever closer in proximity, Hannibal sends his respectful regards to the life at his feet, and steps forward, arms outstretched in invitation, into the daring glare of high beams intermixed with the low and hypnotic depths of the most revered blues and the allusive shafts of red filtering his image. 

“I’m right here, Jack.” Hannibal defiantly counters as he lowers himself to his knees, the cool grasp of snow going unnoticed. 

Jack’s pack crowds in on him, their guns drawn and pointed without any tremors of hesitation. Fingers pressing against the cradle of triggers, palms cradled against grips out of protocol and the human need to desperately latch onto stability in the hours of apprehension. 

Hannibal follows their movements, his dark gaze nearly empty, no tell to be displayed. 

“You’ve finally captured the Chesapeake Ripper, Jack.” 

“This isn’t a capture.” Jack refutes, his eyes stern in their calculation and narrowed, snowfall gathering on the brim of his brown, noir-fashioned hat. “Haven’t caught you, you’ve surrendered.” 

Under Jack’s scrutiny, Hannibal is resolute. Infallible, almost. 

“I want you to know exactly where I am. And where you can always find me.” 

His words are thickly accented, a touch of hoarseness though mainly smooth in their simple utterance. While Hannibal’s glance wanders over his shoulder, lips flattening before being drawn and released into a fraction of a sly simper, his wrists meet the chill and snag of metal; his arms having been pulled and twisted behind his back by one of Jack’s own. 

His message and his focus had been directly aimed at the younger man, who stood frozen on the front wooden porch, soaked in shadow and artificial light. 

Will meets him in the guise of placidity, his glare set stiffly on the frames of his spectacles still. It’s only when the press of the barrel of one of the agent’s guns nudges into the base of Hannibal’s skull and a foot toes the join of his knee, that Will turns sharply on his heel. His swift exit is unmarked, save for the squeal and groan of the screened outer door, the heavy closing of oak against sturdy frame promptly after. 

The former doctor rises from his place of submission, abiding the noiseless orders of government agents surrounding him. 

From a distance, he can make out the scripted phrases being barked at him by someone under Jack’s command. His attention is optional at best; the reading of his rights a waste yet amusing usage of breath, yet the spark lies dead in his eyes as his hair hangs limply, obstructing his view. 

Hannibal climbs into the back of the armed, prisoner transport vehicle, taking his seat with what he knows Jack will only be able to surmise as resignation. 

The air in the truck is palpable though simultaneously dead in all its weight. 

Doors slam, then lock. Engines are revved to the mechanical stagnation of their lives. And here Hannibal is, all his trains screeching to a temporary halt.

***  
A clinical coldness traipses over Hannibal’s nude form, his hands placed casually at his sides as stands on a white paper mat. Nothing to hide. Unashamedly bare. The unfolding procedure of the forensics team a formal bore. 

Normally the inmate is granted to keep his underwear on, though with Hannibal, the team cannot, understandably, take any risks. 

Hannibal had not expected otherwise. 

Regardless, the matter had been trivially irrelevant from the first mention considering Hannibal had been bare beneath his trousers anyway. Stealing clothes off a guard’s lifeless body is one thing, stealing one’s undergarments, however, was too distasteful for him to have even fathomed. 

Brian Zeller, Jimmy Price and Beverly Katz all stand ahead of him, only the side of their profiles visible to him as they thoroughly rifle through his few belongings brought with him from Mason’s estate back on Muskrat Farm. 

An operational video camera stares into him, the recording light on. Armed guards stand on either side of him, the irons pinching at the thin skin of his ankles and wrists. Necessary precautions in order to form the illusion of their secured safety. 

“One pocketknife, right front pocket.” Jimmy states, folding over emptied grey woolen trousers, as Brian logs the information silently next to him. 

 

He moves onto the nearly matching coat, more charcoal in its tasteful shade, searching through each individual pocket, exterior and interior. A few moments of silence fleet past them until Jimmy pulls his hand away from one of the coat’s interior compartments. A nondescript notebook presented to his colleagues. 

“One black, leather bound notebook, interior breast pocket.” Jimmy does a brief search of sifting through the item’s contents, instructing Brian to log the details of the inscribed notes and physic equations. 

It is here that Hannibal tunes out, a sea of apathy waving over him, through him. His gaze stays fixed beyond the point of the camera and all else. 

He sits at the front of the Capella Palatina, one leg hiked elegantly over the other. Alone. The iridescent glow of candlelight dancing off distant stained glass windows, and the more proximate cylindrical tomes of ceremony holders. 

Perched in his designed purgatory, the only solace being the hushed triumph of always being on Will’s mind, even when the empath himself consecrates otherwise. 

The chapel’s graven skull worships at Hannibal’s feet. Ever watchful. Each of them ensconced in a place of eternal judgment. A befallen god at the mercy of time itself.


End file.
